Cathy's Pages

Hi, I'm Cathy Platine and these are my
pages.

Updated March. 09

I've been many things and seen many places in my somewhat
unusual
life journey so far. As a teenager I lived in India and
travelled much of northern India and Kashmir. I was blessed
with being able to explore many of the sights of Rome, Greece,
Turkey, Egypt and much of the rest of the Middle East as well at that
time. I've ridden an arabian stallion to see the pyramids,
spent the night basking in the reflected moonlit in front of the Taj
Mahal, gone on elephant back through the jungle, explored the old
bazaars of Istanbul and old Delhi, climbed in the Himalayas.
I
attended Ohio State University where I followed my interests for
three of the four years resulting in an education closer to the
traditional "classic" model than is the norm for most
American college students. I was a "hippy" and a
political activist in the late sixties. I was married 25
years
and raised a wonderful daughter. I was a master cabinetmaker,
a
psychiatric aide, a mystic who taught classes for the OSU free
university in the mid-seventies on the occult and finally, a nursing
assistant who worked as a "gypsy" aide in many different
hospitals and nursing homes.

Not a "normal" woman's life in many respects, but then,
I'm also not your standard woman.

I was born in 1949 near Detroit, Michigan and the gender and
name
on my birth certificate then is not the same as the name and gender
of my life today. I could now bore you with all the lurid
details of growing up different, but most reading this already have
heard it many times in many forms from others. My story
differs
only in that I discovered relatively late in life that I was born
intersexed and that fact was hidden from me by most of the doctors I
had contact with who knew. Intersexed?, what's that you
ask?
Is that where someone has both male and female genitals? In
my
case, yes. But my case is unusual among intersexed people as
well. I am what is called a tetragametic chimera or "merged twin
mosaic".
That means I was born with both XX and XY tissues and had some of
both sets of genitalia, which is extremely rare. Scar tissue
indicated surgery was done on me when I was born without my
parents
knowledge or consent. It borders on
certainty in my mind that a hysterectomy was done on me when my
appendix was removed in 1980, again, without my knowledge or
consent. I spent many years as a transsexual advocate and am
only now breaking my silence on being intersexed rather than
transsexual. None of it is really relevant to my life now
except as history. Today I am happily female, my body and
mind
in congruence.

I could wail about the difficulties of my life, regret my lost
girlhood and be resentful of the years I spent trying to act like a
male for all those around me, but that would be missing and
regretting all the wonderful things I did and learned unrestrained by
the expectations placed on women in western society. The
simple
fact is, I was able to learn and do things unhampered by those
expectations and my life has been richer for that. I consider
myself blessed being the way I was and the way I am today.
Each
and every step along my journey taught me valuable lessons and opened
my eyes to aspects of life that most others never even
considered.
Even becoming disabled had it's positive results. As She did
in
ancient times, the Goddess chose me before birth and guided my life
to forge me according to Her will.

Today I live in upstate New York in a small village tucked
away in
the Catskills. I'm surrounded by gorgeous mountain scenery,
have a purpose in life and have a full enjoyable life doing the work of
the Goddess with a growing circle of wonderful women.. I live
with my kitty companion Streaky at the Phrygianum of the Maetreum of
Cybele.

LEGAL NOTICE:

The domain, gallae.com, is the personal property of Cathryn
Platine. The Maetreum of Cybele has it's website hosted on
gallae.com but all material in the subdirectory of
http://gallae.com/cathy is of a personal nature, not official opinions
or statements by the Maetreum of Cybele but rather the opinions and
intellectual property of Cathryn Platine AS AN INDIVIDUAL AND NOT AS
BATTAKES OR SISTER OF THE MAETREUM OF CYBELE.

Any and all use of any material from these pages by any official of any
local, state or federal government or agent of such including in any
court within the United States is a specific violation of copyright
that incures an immediate charge of $150,000.00 US which is due and
payable immediately upon such use.

copyright 2002-12, Cathryn
Platine. All rights
reserved. These pages may not be reproduced in whole or in
part
in any electronic or print media without the express written
permission of the copyright holder. This notice applies
globally to all pages on gallae.com